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In reply to the discussion: Why the Universe Obviously Has a Creator (and Why Some Atheists Refuse to Even Consider It) [View all]saras
(6,670 posts)15. "Anyone want to count the fallacies and factual errors?" I'd rather count fire ants, but sure.
I'm usually on the side of not knowing in religious arguments, and in this one I'm definitely on the side of not knowing a bunch of stuff that's wrong.
The universe was obviously created by God because I couldn't have created it. Of course this also applies to Blonde on Blonde, Tom Jones International and the first Wham! album.
Throughout recorded history the majority of humanity has seen the existence of a Creator...as an obvious truth
Wrong. Most of the world doesn't even recognize "truth" in the Western sense as applying to the distant past. In many "polytheistic" systems, the "ultimate creator" is unimportant and vague, and/or the mythological (in our terms) nature of the past is accepted.
This truth does not stem from any doctrine or belief system
Wrong. It IS A DOCTRINE OR BELIEF SYSTEM
it is at the heart of all religions
Wrong again
is the underlying, indispensible principle of most spiritual practices.
Wrong again.
Even Buddhism, which is often misrepresented as an atheistic tradition,
Wrong again, and finding one wacky Buddhist doesn't change it
recognizes the existence of a guiding consciousness.
Wrong again
As the Zen Buddhist master
Zen is not mainstream Buddhism
Soyen Shaku, said, "Let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood.
Ordinarily for who? For Westerners, "ordinarily" is the lack of a transcendent male deity with a human personality.
It has certainly a God
not to the average person, it doesn't
the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists.
Sounds more Unitarian Universalist than Zen.
Scientific discoveries have only reinforced this realization
ROTFL
as it becomes even clearer that the Universe was carefully designed.
ROTFL Explain to me the careful design of traumatic insemination.
Prominent British mathematician Roger Penrose calculated the probably of random chance producing a Universe conducive to life
ROTFL
at vastly less than the scientifically accepted definition of "zero."
You mean a very large negative number? Negative probabilities are interesting, to say the least.
Even if one were to accept arguments from those who claim that the Universe is not so "fine tuned,"
Guinea worms. Candiru. Fatal Familial Insomnia. Ascariasis. Some fine tuning.
we must rely on the mind-boggling,
Some minds boggle easier than others.
and empirically unproven, concept of multiple Universes
Doesn't ask much, does he. Fuckin' SHOW ME your alternative universes or shut up!
and even then the probability of random events leading to life
Maybe even true, but "random" and "God" aren't the only two hypotheses.
only budges from staggeringly unimaginable to extraordinarily unlikely.
God, I love hard numbers. Nothing like solid data in a scientific argument.
And we are still left with such clearly designed, and incredibly complex, mechanisms as DNA and the brain.
"Clearly designed?" What, then, is junk DNA? The brain? Gary Marcus has a whole book on the subject, based in actual science, called "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind"
This is not a "God of the Gaps" explanation, any more than looking under the hood of a car and deducing a designer is "Engineer of the Gaps."
Anyone with any sense who looks under the hood of a car deduces a committee. With marketers as well as engineers.
To postulate a random, undirected, meaningless, existence
I count 2^4, or 16, different hypotheses in there - well, 15 out of 16 if you disallow denying all of them.
in the face of this unbelievable complexity and purpose of life
THERE'S THE PROBLEM. You can't "believe" complexity and purpose. It's too complicated for belief, you have to think about it and understand it. Try that, and things will go much better.
is, in actuality, the much more irrational, and less logical, conclusion.
OK, I'm tired. Does that mean he wins?
This has been compared to proposing that a hurricane whipped through a junkyard and randomly assembled a jet plane.
This is EXACTLY the "God of the Gaps" hypotheses he just asserted that it wasn't.
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Why the Universe Obviously Has a Creator (and Why Some Atheists Refuse to Even Consider It) [View all]
ellisonz
Mar 2012
OP
"Anyone want to count the fallacies and factual errors?" I'd rather count fire ants, but sure.
saras
Mar 2012
#15
Well, if it's old and a "philosophy of the east," it must be unquestionably true.
laconicsax
Mar 2012
#34
I suggest that you don't understand the basics because you say terrifically ignorant things.
laconicsax
Mar 2012
#58
Actually there is a good argument that it is highly probable that we are part
Warren Stupidity
Mar 2012
#74
I like that one. Odds of anything being exactly the way it is are astronomical.
DirkGently
Mar 2012
#9
Whatever assumptions he used, the universe is in no way fine-tuned for life.
laconicsax
Mar 2012
#23
"God" is a piss-poor answer because it replaces one unknown with another and stops further inquiry.
laconicsax
Mar 2012
#69
So you expect an "answer" to the question of creation to be found by science? n/t
ellisonz
Mar 2012
#77
Yes, you do realize that everything we know about the physical world...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2012
#79
Your clumsy anology is rather inaccurate, and God isn't an answer, but a roadblock to the answer...
Humanist_Activist
Mar 2012
#78
An omnipotent god would create all possible simultations within all possible universes
FarCenter
Mar 2012
#75